For modern telecommunications terminals (or terminal configurations which include supplementary components), various options are known for inputting and storing user-specific data and also for transmitting such data to another subscriber.
These include, by way of example, telephone answering machines, separate or else integrated into a conventional landline telephone, and in which user-specific information is stored in a semiconductor memory or on tape by means of voice input and is transmitted to the calling subscriber in the event of a call not being taken.
The call number memories in modern landline telephones or mobile telephones (also referred to here as a “telephone book”) can also be regarded as memories for user-specific data which are supplied by means of an input from the user and can be accessed by suitable selection means in order to either output a stored call number on a display unit or to set up a connection to this call number directly (or both).
A configuration is also produced by the internal storage device, provided to implement the SMS (Short Message Service) or e-mail in mobile telephones, for buffer-storing a short message and for sending it to a desired recipient after input has ended.
Although a multiplicity of different storage options for user-specific data are known for modern telecommunications terminals, and in this context it is also known practice to supply such data directly from the respective memory device to a transmission device for transmission to another subscriber, certain instances of application involve complex and also, in terms of reliability and data transmission and the security of the transmitted data against unauthorized access, unsatisfactory actions.
Thus, in recent years, it has become commonplace to be able to handle a multiplicity of diverse services. For example, to handle the delivery of certain goods, booking a flight, booking a trip or else a financial transaction—via a telecommunications network, with the orderer or purchaser merely giving the number and the validity period of a credit card or customer card or the like to the vendor or supplier by telephone. For this purpose, before the telephone call, or even during it, the user needs to get out the appropriate card or to retrieve the data possibly from an organizer or a database in which he has stored them temporarily, so that he can then inform the subscriber on the other terminal of them by speaking. In loud situations, this type of communication is anything but reliable, which means that misunderstandings with severe consequences may arise. Furthermore, in many instances of application in which the communication is not completely screened from third parties, it is entirely possible for the relevant string of digits to be overheard when submitted audibly and for the credit card number thus to fall into the wrong hands.
Finally, this way of handling credit or customer card numbers is associated with a degree of “fiddling”, which is extremely disagreeable to the user, and in some situations—for example during a car journey—it is not possible at all in practice.